Yeti DNA: has the mystery really been solved?

The objective, he said, was to give the samples a thorough scientific examination. "These creatures are under the umbrella of cryptozoology and the last 50 years have been off-limits to science – it's been handed over to a more eccentric fringe over the last 50 years."Sykes examined a gene in the mitochondrial DNA from the hair samples. Mitochondria are the tiny powerhouses in biological cells, turning food into the type of energy required for the body to carry out its functions. They are passed down from mothers and have a small genome that can be examined to map out the how a specimen might be related to other specimens.Specifically, Sykes's team looked at the 12S RNA gene, something that has already been analysed in all known mammalian species. By comparing his samples with those in GenBank, the international repository of gene sequences, Sykes was able to identify the animals that the hair might have from. "In the case of these two yeti samples that we're talking about, they matched a sequence in the GenBank from a polar bear jaw found in Svalbard, which is at least 40,000 years old." This was around the time that the polar bear and the related brown bear were separating into different species.Bill Amos, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Cambridge, cautioned that forensic samples of DNA, such as the ones being examined by Sykes, were always difficult to deal with. First off, scientists needed to be careful about the true source of the samples. Th...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: theguardian.com World news Animals Science Source Type: news